Jackpot! (2024)

This light-hearted action comedy does exactly what it sets out to do, providing inventively comedic action sequences and a great odd-couple pairing between Awkwafina and John Cena.

Premise:  In the near future, the California Grand Lottery introduces a new rule to increase public interest: if anyone kills the lottery winner before sundown on the day of the lottery draw, the killer ‘inherits’ the winner’s multi-million-dollar jackpot.  Unfortunately, out-of-towner Katie Kim (Awkwafina) was not aware of this when she accidentally entered the lottery, and so soon has rival ‘Lottery protection agents’ Noel Cassidy (John Cena) and Louis Lewis (Simu Liu) offering to keep her alive until sunset in return for a cut of her winnings.

Review:

I’ve been a huge fan of Paul Feig‘s work over the years, but since the excellent A Simple Favour in 2018, he’s had a couple of misfires with Last Christmas and The School for Good and Evil.  Thankfully, Jackpot! is a real return to form, balancing the comedy and action as skilfully as he did in The Heat and Spy.

Like with those earlier films, the casting is a key part of the film’s success.  Awkwafina is great in these comedic fish-out-of-water ‘everyman’ roles (see also: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Renfield), and John Cena is arguably at his best when he’s comically skewering his action-star persona (he even made the otherwise dire Ricky Stanicky just about watchable).  While we continue to wait for Shang-Chi 2 (seriously Marvel, what’s the hold up?), at least we get a reunion between Awkwafina and Simu Liu here, as he gets another chance to show off the comedy skills that he displayed in last year’s Barbie.  But for me, the revelation in the cast was Ayden Mayeri, who comes close to stealing every scene she’s in as Katie Kim’s self-absorbed Airbnb host.  After being one of the best things in 2022’s hugely-underrated Confess, Fletch (where she played Detective Griz), Ayden Mayeri is definitely someone I’ll be keeping an eye out for in future.

“…some of the most creative fight sequences I’ve seen this year…”

Jackpot! is Paul Feig’s homage to the Jackie Chan movies that he grew up watching, and the action in this movie very much lives up to that legacy.  The fight sequences are technically impressive and well-choreographed in order to look like they aren’t well-choreographed, and that the characters are just flailing around desperately making use of whatever’s to hand.  Weaving comedy beats into these action sequences in inventive and original ways means that these fight sequences are some of the most creative I’ve seen this year.

Ultimately, Jackpot! may not change your life, but it delivers on the comedy (including a genuinely unexpected cameo or two, and a couple of mid-credit scenes) and on the action, so if you’re a fan of either, this is definitely worth 1 hour, 45 minutes of your time.